UK tax rev­enue on higher priced homes in­creased

LON­DON: The U.K. Trea­sury has net­ted 15 per­cent more tax on home pur­chases worth more than 1 mil­lion pounds ($1.4 mil­lion) since re­form­ing the levy on prop­erty trans­ac­tions, anal­y­sis by the tax au­thor­i­ties showed. Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer Ge­orge Os­borne in­tro­duced the change in De­cem­ber 2014 and since then more than 780,000 home­buy­ers saved about 657 mil­lion pounds on so-called stamp duty, the Trea­sury said in an emailed state­ment on Sun­day. The mea­sure, which in­tro­duced marginal rates that only ap­ply to the por­tion of the price above a se­ries of thresh­olds, was aimed at re­duc­ing costs for av­er­age fam­i­lies and in­creas­ing the levy on more ex­pen­sive homes. The pre­vi­ous sys­tem levied a sin­gle rate on the en­tire pur­chase price. Ninety-eight per­cent of home­buy­ers "are sav­ing money thanks to our re­form, which has done away with the un­fair old sys­tem that meant in­creases be­ing im­posed on those pay­ing just a pound over the thresh­old," Os­borne said in the state­ment. "Th­ese fig­ures show that the ben­e­fits are be­ing felt across the coun­try. It's a fair, work­able, last­ing re­form to the tax­a­tion of hous­ing."